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Detective Danny Clover
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Goldie
This is amazing.
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Detective Danny Clover
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Detective Danny Clover
Welcome to Choice Classic radio where we bring to you the greatest old time radio shows like us on Facebook. Subscribe to us on YouTube and thank you for donating@ChoiceClassicRadio.com Broadway's My Beats from Times Square to Columbus Circle. The gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway is five feet. With Larry Thor is detective Danny Clover. November night slips down on Broadway. A gust of blackness and at once Broadway is a neon lighted revival meeting that screams for the joy and the salvation. Then the happy trumpet yells and makes the music of the nighttime, heads into the darkness, drift and dies. From my window at headquarters, I watch it, watch the man detach himself from it, turn and stand for an instant in the shallow pool of light from the street lamps and consider it. Turn again and up the steps and in a little while, open my door. Because you've been told to see me, Mr. Culver. Come in. You know all about me, don't you? Not a thing. Who are you? What do you mean, not a thing? I'm Mr. Bryant. And what do you know about me? About my wife? Why you think I was in here yesterday, tell you people a bunch of lies? You talked to someone else? I didn't know anything about you. My wife, she didn't come home. She hasn't come home. Mr. Colv. I see you reported a day ago. Yes. Clara went out the other evening. I waited for her. Billy's been waiting. Billy? Three and a half going on four. The second one. Really? Our first child didn't even get born. See? Why did you come to see me, Ms. Bryant? The man in the other office told me. Please find. Please find Clara, Mr. Clover. She's gotta come home, Mr. Clover. Because the man in the other office said to show you the letter. Here. Open it and read it as you see. The man who wrote the letter says he knows where my wife is. He says his name is Shorty Gunn. And he says, come to the Apollo Hotel. What does that mean? And bring money. That's strange. He says, come to the Apollo Hotel. But it's written on Mission House stationery and drink money. That's why I came to the police again. Although I am worried about my wife, I have my head above me. You, the police. She'll find her, Clara, and she'll come home to us. Then you fellas are good. Find her. Find her. Find her, Find her. Suddenly the spill of words stopped flowing from him. Became a moan, became the whisper of the helpless. Its component part defiance and shame. This was the universal currency of men who must beg to appease hunger, to barter dignity, to blot out the sudden emptiness. I told him I'd check on it, try to find his wife for him. Talk to the man who had written the letter he accepted. The alms I'd given him, went away. The Apollo Hotel stands on a corner of the Bowery and sells. Men sleep at 50 cents a night. You walk up a flight of stairs, the grit under your feet screeching your presence. And at the landing, a desk moist with a sweat of hands that have bargained across it. Back of it, the man with the green eye shade, the broken, restless fingers. The vendor of sleep. Go away. We'll pull up every bed in the house. I want Shorty Duns. You hear? You talk like you got a right to want somebody. Police. Yeah, I know. You know how I know? Because I'm sensitive to the sounds feet make on my stairs. Without looking up, I can tell. Is it a rummy, a wino, a bum, a cop. You want Shorty, huh? Yeah. Imagine that. Shorty finally made it. Somebody wants him. Come on. Bed 12. Distressing. Ain't a policeman where a man comes in here for four bits worth of sleep and something won't let him. It bothers him. You'd be astonished how it bothers me. Yeah. Dead 12, shorty done. Hey, Shorty. Hey, wake up. Today a miracles is here. You got a visitor. Asleep. Quiet, will you, Shorty? Well, what do you know about that? He can't hear you, can he? Look at him. Like a baby. The jackknife in his heart finally brought it to him. Yeah, you wanted him. Policeman. Take him away so I can sell his bed all over again. That's how it was that a sir was created in the Apollo Hotel, Bowery. Wino was murdered and a respectable housewife disappears. What element is common to both consider now? The letter to Mr. Bryan written on Mission House Stationery, 10th Avenue. Go there and the man is standing there smiling and waiting for you to come to him. My name is Paul Foster. You're welcome here. Thanks. I'm Danny Clover, police. I hope there's no trouble. I'm trying to get some information about a man. So many men come in here for hot me or shoes. Friendliness. When we feel it will be accepted. A newspaper, little thing. Sometimes even a job. Mostly we try to give away dignity. I know you people do wonderful things. Thanks. What man did you want to ask me about? Shorty Dunn. There's nothing I can tell you that's startling about Shorty. Of course. I can show you a written record on him. He's been rehabilitated about seven times, which is about normal. When did you see him last? Last night. It was very late. We had no bed for him. He slept at the Apollo Hotel. I'm glad he did. I give him a half a dollar to find himself a bed. I'm glad he used it for that. He was found stabbed to death. It's gotten so that when I hear of death. Well, the lives of these men are repeated. They're dying. I don't know what to say anymore. He wrote a letter before he walked out of here, didn't he? That's right, he did. He told me it was very important. And I given the stationary enough stamp to send a letter spatial delivery. Do you know anything else about him? Not much. There's a bar down the street. Goldies, it's called. Shorty Swept out and whatever else needed to be done. In places not bad. You might try there. Stabbed to death. Pity.
Goldie
I look her and I speak as a lady who's had looked in the chatter before.
Detective Danny Clover
You're Goldie? The one and only. Vince.
Goldie
Call me that. Cause I got a heart of gold and piece of match, what's left of.
Detective Danny Clover
See, here I go.
Goldie
My dowry to some lucky finch.
Detective Danny Clover
Goldie, I.
Goldie
You want to marry me? Looker. I've been searching for the likes of you.
Detective Danny Clover
They told me at the mission how Shorty Dunn worked here sometimes. Goldie, shut up.
Goldie
The lovely.
Detective Danny Clover
Listen.
Goldie
That is our song. So it isn't mine, then. You think for a reception that his.
Detective Danny Clover
Dad called him murdered?
Goldie
You didn't need to tell me that. I knew about it.
Detective Danny Clover
The gents brought me word.
Goldie
They lap up my beer and give me the world.
Detective Danny Clover
Tell me about him, Your relative. Police. Danny Clover.
Goldie
It makes you a relative.
Detective Danny Clover
Shorty was an old friend of yours?
Goldie
My fiance many days. Stood right there at the bar rail, just where you're standing. He proposed to Me on bended knees.
Detective Danny Clover
But you didn't marry him, Shorty.
Goldie
That no good. I take him back a bite my tongue. There are a lot of nice things about Shorty.
Detective Danny Clover
Like what?
Goldie
Like the way he'd buy me little presents sometimes from the empties I gave him to sell.
Detective Danny Clover
He worked for you? You paid him.
Goldie
That wasn't work relative to Shorty. It was a labor of love. I had to force my empties on him.
Detective Danny Clover
That's how he lived. Bought a place to sleep, something to eat.
Goldie
Oh, my. Shorty had other sources of income.
Detective Danny Clover
Like what?
Goldie
Like Joe the drunk man. Shorty sold him things he found in trash cans. You'd be surprised the things people throw away. Love, em.
Detective Danny Clover
What do I find, Joe?
Goldie
Over a night toward the river. Have one on the house, Danny, while Goldie goes in the back room. Christ.
Detective Danny Clover
Your name's Joe? Who are you? You're open pretty late, aren't you, Joe? It's almost 11 o'. Clock. Make junk at all hours. I stay here and sort it out. Now. Who are you? Danny Clover, Police. Is that junk? On your feet, Joe. I'm busy. On your feet. Stand up. I want to talk to you. Better get your 11 o' clock jollies this way. People gotta stand when they talk to you. Gonna talk in your backyard or mine? God. Did you know Shorty? Done did. I know him? I know him. He's been martyred. So you know anything about it? Look, to me, Shorty was bottles. He brought bottles and I paid him. All it means to me that Shorty is dead. That I'm going to have to find someone just as good with bottles. That's all, huh? What do you want from me? What I got here is junk. And who brings it here is junk. Where did Shorty hang up a question? He held out his hand on corners. Who knows what corners? He slept in doorways. Slept at the mission house. He slept in those tenements over there. Over where? Two of them. Right over there. You can see them if you stand on your toes and look over the fence. Deserted. Condemned. You know, our tenements get like people get. Danny. Over here. My Lord. If you hadn't answered, I wouldn't have known it was you. Shape, shadow or something left over. Let's go. You're looking for something, Danny, in this tenement. That's why you called me, huh? If it's not asking too much. Something that'll help me find Shorty Dunn's murderer. The something he may have left. Slept here sometimes, the man told me. Look for it mug. Okay, Danny, you take these rooms. I'll go on down the hall. Yeah, get Danny. Come here. Find something not what you expected, huh, Danny? No. She was strangled. See? The glass shows up, the marks on the throat. I'd say she's been here a night, maybe more. Anything else? Yeah. This purse I found laying beside her. Opener? Yeah. Compact, tissues. Her wallet. No money. A picture of a little boy. Identification card says Mrs. James Bryan, 1946. List 146. Case of accident notified. James Bryant. Danny? Huh? Isn't this the Mrs. Bryan that was reported missing? The one her husband? Yeah, that one. She was here all the time. What do you know about that? What do you know? You are listening to Broadway's My Beat, written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin and starring Larry Thor as Detective Danny Pulford. There's a time on Broadway when the street is not yet come into its own. The empty hours, the useless hours between dawn and noon. Broadway scrubs its sidewalks, tries to sweep the hours away, to pile them into gutters. It eyes the unlighted neon, checks the sleeping masters of the spectaculars. Longs for the time of darkness. But the daylight clings. You must find a way of rejecting it. I did brush it, huh? Because what ticks are there when the sun shines down? Except this item. Maybe the item in the paper you picked out of the trash bin. Missing woman found, it says in condemned tenements murdered. And this one, derelict stabbed to death in flophouse. That'll hold you, I kid, till the nighttime. Sure it will. And at headquarters, a man comes in oozing with information. You know that because he tells you I'm oozing with it. Danny, the bits and pieces I got for you, you'll give them to me, naturally, but piecemeal. First, Detective Muggleman has even now picked up Mr. Bryan. They are on their way to the morgue to identify the deceased. Well, tell me the rest of the way there, huh, Daglia? If you promise to let me keep up with you. I promise. Second, on the person of the deceased, Shorty Dunn, was found. $20, undoubtedly from the purse of Mrs. Clara Bryan. Go on. Thirdly, our boys have checked with the manager of the flat house. He tells them a guy he could never describe bought a bed at his hotel, registered as Joe Jones. Slept for a while next to shore, got up, walked away. Nobody knows where. Nobody cares. Except us, huh, Danny? Well, what else? Hey, Danny, not so fast. What else is fourthly, A list was found in Mrs. Bryan's purse. It appears to our experts to be a shopping list. It so appears to me also. You got it. Naturally. Give it to me. I had so intended.
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Ever wonder what life is like with a phantom screen? It's magic.
Detective Danny Clover
It is. Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. What is that?
Goldie
This is amazing.
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Retractable screens for your home make life better. Visit phantom screens.com podbean your message amplified.
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Detective Danny Clover
It's not necessary for me to go in with you, Danny, into the morgue. It spoils my day. You can go back to. Thanks, Danny. The spectacle of death on a flat lit by a single boat. The chill wind that built into the morgue rocked the light gently. And they appeared each in his turn. The policeman a dead woman, her husband stark. It needed another quality. Not another spectator. I left. Now there was a lift. Mrs. Bryan had intended to visit four places. 10 cent store on a side street off upper Broadway. A lending library close by, a place called Mildred's Beauty shop, and a Dr. Johnson. Whether she had gotten to these places or in what sequence, I didn't know. I had to find out. Yes, sir? Something I can do for you? My name's Plover, Mr. Libby. I'm from the police. Police? That's right. Why? I mean, why are you here? As a customer. Call the police. I want some information. I'd be glad to. But what information would I have for the police? Did you know Mrs. Clara Bram, the woman who was murdered? Yes. She was in here the other night. The night before last. What time was that, Mr. Liddy? Oh, I couldn't tell you that. I don't know. What did she buy? Well, you can't expect me to remember that. Every item I have in the store. 10 cents or 25 or a dollar tab from your cash register of your sales. Oh, yes. Get after. From the day before yesterday. All right. Here you are. As you see, every item, 10 cents or 25. There's a sale for $4.98. The last item on the tab. Oh, the toy bear. The mechanical bear. I bought a shipment for Christmas. I. I remember now. Mrs. Brian bought one for her. Billy, that's her son. Then she must have been your last customer. She must have been. I closed at 7. But I. I don't have any idea how near to closing time she left. Not any idea. Yes, sir. A book. Get well, Card. You run this place alone? A little bit of hurt. Different. I asked you. I got another one coming. Hey. In the nose. Every fall, like clockwork. You'll pardon me when I take my in. You asked me something. If you ran this place along. That's right. Absolutely right. All around. That matters. Then you knew Mrs. Clara Bryan? Not as well as I would have liked. Ever see her? I mean before. Shouldn't have happened to Clara. No. You've got a point there, mister. Yes, sir, you've got a point. Whenever Clara walked in, it filled the day for me. Made me lend books to myself to read at night. What'd it do for her? You're a policeman? Uh huh. I thought so. The way you ask questions. Very personal, very adaptive. Then you'll answer them because you like the way I ask them. What it did for her? You ask. How would you know about a woman like Mrs. Bryan? I'd pass a remark, she'd smile. You know, they're kind of Mona Lisa, like borrow two books instead of one. That was all. I offered to give her a book once. Anyone she wanted, any price. She let me walk her home that evening, but didn't take the book. That was the night before last. Don't cloud me. Not night before last. Two weeks ago. But she was here night before last? Yes. To return a book. Hated it, she said. I knocked off a day's rent. She didn't take another book out. Did she have anything with her package? Mechanical doll? Nothing. Just a book and herself. I noticed because I'm Mrs. Bry and I noticed these things every time she walked in. Yeah.
Goldie
Coming, coming. Is your wife here? Sit down right over there. And have a magazine. Which one's your wife? I'll tell her.
Detective Danny Clover
I'm from the police. Bully for you.
Goldie
Which one's your wife?
Detective Danny Clover
I want some information from someone named Mildred.
Goldie
Me? What information?
Detective Danny Clover
About Clara Bryan.
Goldie
Sure, I'll tell you about him. I read the morning papers. Who found strangled.
Detective Danny Clover
You want me to tell you why? That's right.
Goldie
Clara was attractive. She was 35 years old and her hair didn't need touching. Had a nice figure and she knew it. She's proud of it.
Detective Danny Clover
Had a husband who worked too hard.
Goldie
And came home too late.
Detective Danny Clover
How do you know all this?
Goldie
I run a beauty parlor. And it's for women. Y' all Listen to some of them right now. Mrs. Conley's in there telling her hairdresser why sometimes she's sorry she got a divorce.
Detective Danny Clover
Did Clara Bryan know any men?
Goldie
You say it so gently. Women don't say it like that at all.
Detective Danny Clover
Did she know any?
Goldie
She loved her husband. What woman doesn't like a man to look at her? What woman doesn't like to be insulted? But Clara always went to her husband and child.
Detective Danny Clover
She was in here the night before Lent, wasn't she?
Goldie
Yeah, she was.
Detective Danny Clover
How long did she stay?
Goldie
Just a few minutes. Long enough for me to tell her we couldn't take her. And then she wanted to wash and set.
Detective Danny Clover
Do you remember what time it was?
Goldie
I came back from dinner about 5:30. A little after that, about a quarter six.
Detective Danny Clover
One more thing. Was she carrying anything? She had a book with her air track.
Goldie
She did? She told me it was a terrible book. Waste of time. And she was attorney.
Detective Danny Clover
If you have a toy with her. Mechanical bear.
Goldie
I. I didn't notice.
Detective Danny Clover
Maybe she did.
Goldie
Do you want anything else?
Detective Danny Clover
No.
Goldie
Can you pardon me? It's time to take Mrs. Westfall out of the oil.
Detective Danny Clover
I'm certain of it. When Mrs. Brian came for her appointment at six, she was only carrying a book, Nothing else. Why did Mrs. Brian have to come to you? A chiropractor? Mrs. Bryan had trouble with her back. Been coming to me for some time now. Aches in her back, pain. I did what I could. I gave her a temporary relief. But. What are you trying to say? I cured the symptoms but not the source of her trouble. That doesn't tell me a whole lot. Well, you understand, I'm not a medical doctor. I'm a chiropractor. What I'm going to tell you is only conjecture. All right. The trouble was here. Here in her head, not in her back. Meaning? All is a very glib word. Or a psychothermatic. It's simple, really. She was tired of routine. She'd reached a point in life when she recognized the fact that what she had was all there was going to be. As far as her life was concerned. She was restless in her mind. Men. Clara didn't have the heart to do anything like that. Clara did it. She permitted me that. To call her by her first name. I confess it to you. She knew I was attracted to her. Once when she left here, she touched my cheek and smiled. If she would have let me, I would have tried to make her happy. Believe me, Mr. Clover. She wouldn't let me. And that ended that. These were the four places Mrs. Bryan had visited before she died. When she had gone to the beauty shop, she had a book she left there with it. Had gotten rid of it at the next stop, the lending library. Then the 6 o' clock appointment with a chiropractor. The chiropractor was certain she didn't have the mechanical toy with her. And the man at the 10 cent store was certain he'd older one. So the store had been the last drop on the list. Go back there. Hello there. I see you came back. That's right. How you coming? With what? Well, you know, with the murder case. Oh, not so good, Mr. Living. I was reading the papers. I see where you boys found a bum in the bar he stabbed to death. This happened while you were looking for Mrs. Blind, didn't it? Uhhuh. You sound tired. Mind if I look around for a while? Mm. These boys. Quite a collection. Do you have kiddies? No, I'm not married. Oh. Have you. Have you made any progress on the case? Some nice toy. Take it with you. Maybe you've got a nephew. No, no, none of those either. What do you figure the connection is between that bum and Mrs. Bryan? Pretty obvious. Obvious to you boys not to attend store man like me. Well, it's like this. Our technical boys tell me Mrs. Bryan wasn't strangled in the tenement at some other place. He was killed and then brought to the tenement. Do you figure the bomb killed there?
Goldie
Huh?
Detective Danny Clover
I read where he had $20 in his pocket. Motive was robbery. No, that's not what happened. What happened is. I see you're staring at my 498 item. Those mechanical bears, you like them? What happened is this. Our bum Shorty was about to bed down for the night in the condemned tenement. He found Mrs. Bryan's body, opened her pocketbook. So she was, took her money and ran. You boys. Sir. Just put Mrs. Bryan in the tenement. He watched Shorty do all that. Followed Shorty the rest of his life. Saw him write a letter at the mission. A letter? I didn't read anything about that. Tiller must have seen that the letter was addressed to her husband. Well, how did you figure that without seeing what happened and all? The only way it makes sense. Gee, I don't know. I stick to my theory. I still think the bum cured. No, you're wrong. Mr. Shorty didn't tell her. The killer followed Shorty to the Apollo Hotel and killed him because he thought that the reason Shorty had written to Mr. Bryan to tell him he knew who had murdered his wife, Mr. Brian, was an attractive woman. I really didn't notice. Funny, everybody else noticed. I didn't. Funny, all the attention I paid to people is what they buy. I. I have a living to make. How many of these 498the mechanical bears that you ordered? Six. Funny. What's funny? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I killed six here on the shelf. What's that got to do with anything? You sold one to Mrs. Brian, remember? What? But you never took it out of the store. Did she? After you killed her, you put it back on the shelf. She. She teased me. She looked promises at me. When I grabbed her packages for her. She'd stand close to me. And when I looked at her, she'd turn around and walk away. The other night. The other night, she looked tired. I invited her in the back for coffee. She said all right. She went back and slouched down in my chair. I looked at her. I brushed her hair back from her cheek. She started to scream. Something happened. But I strangled her. Broadway It's a hunger to complete with eight beat rhythm and spinning me on Grab yourself a dream and dance a while Close your eyes make believe you've got your arms around something good Keep them closed what you're holding is dust It's Broadway. The gaudiest, the most violent the lonesomest mile in the world. Broadway My Beat Tonight on FEN Presents, you've been listening to some of the best in radio drama with Denver McGee and Molly and Broadway is my Beat. Join us again Monday evening at the same time 9 5, when Fen presents Dragnet and Escape.
Podcast: Choice Classic Radio Detectives | Old Time Radio
Episode: Broadway Is My Beat: The Shorty Dunne Murder Case (Aired 11/24/1950)
Date Posted: September 3, 2025
Starring: Larry Thor as Detective Danny Clover
This episode of Broadway Is My Beat delves into the grim intersection of lives lost on New York’s Broadway: a desperate husband pleading for help to find his missing wife, and the stabbing death of a derelict known as Shorty Dunn. Detective Danny Clover traverses the underbelly of Manhattan to piece together how these two cases are connected, revealing the silent tragedies found in the city’s shadows.
“Please find. Please find Clara, Mr. Clover.” — Mr. Bryant (01:19)
“Well, what do you know about that? He can’t hear you, can he? Look at him. Like a baby. The jackknife in his heart finally brought it to him.” — Hotel Proprietor (04:03)
“He’s been rehabilitated about seven times, which is about normal.” — Paul Foster (06:32)
“Stood right there at the bar rail… He proposed to me on bended knees.” — Goldie (08:46)
“What I got here is junk. And who brings it here is junk.” — Joe (10:18)
“You sold one to Mrs. Bryan, remember? … After you killed her, you put it back on the shelf.” — Detective Danny Clover (26:30)
Goldie’s Tough-Tender Lament:
“He proposed to me on bended knees.” (08:46)
“That no good. I take him back, I bite my tongue.” (08:58)
The Jaded Bar Owner:
“You’d be astonished how it bothers me. Yeah. Dead 12, Shorty done.” (03:48)
Philosophical Reflection on Broadway:
“Broadway’s a hunger. … Grab yourself a dream and dance a while. Close your eyes, make believe you’ve got your arms around something good. Keep them closed. What you’re holding is dust.” (28:13–END)
The Shorty Dunne Murder Case is a classic, hard-boiled detective story drawn in noir hues. Detective Clover’s journey through the margins of society provides both a gritty procedural and a poignant meditation on loneliness and longing in the city. Loaded with pathos—especially in Goldie’s and Mr. Bryan’s grief—the episode winds through the lost souls of Broadway, ending with a revelation of ordinary obsession turned deadly.
This drama offers both a vivid character study and a tightly constructed mystery, with each clue and confession building toward a melancholy, inevitable close. The language is rich in period slang and tough-guy poetry, immersing you fully in the seedy, sentimental beat of 1950s Broadway.